


It's Beginning to Get to Me

by bashert



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Gen, Season one-ish
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-11 22:17:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1178614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bashert/pseuds/bashert
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I guess we should have been stuck together sooner," he said. "It helps when neither of us has anywhere to escape." </p>
<p>Season One AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	It's Beginning to Get to Me

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not even a little sorry for the use of Snow Patrol lyrics. Not even a little. This is set somewhere around the middle of season one? After "Amen" before "5/1" so you know, approximately March/April.

_I tried to tell you before I left_   
_But I was screaming under my breath_   
_You are the only thing that makes sense_   
_Just ignore all this present tense_

_We need to feel breathless with love_  
 _And not collapse under its weight_  
 _I'm gasping for the air to fill_  
 _My lungs with everything I've lost-_ Snow Patrol

* * *

"Will!" The door to his office came flying open and Mac was standing there, her hands on her hips and a furious look on her face. "What in the fuck was that?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Will lit his cigarette, partly because it had been a rough show, and partly because he knew she _hated_ when he smoked. She was already pissed off, he figured, might as well _really_ piss her off. Will McAvoy never did anything half way.

He was not in the mood to fight with her. Not about this, not about _anything_. It had been a long day, _fuck_ , a long week actually, and what he wanted to do was just go home, pour himself several stiff drinks, and brood in peace. But Mac was pissed, and he knew, although he wouldn't admit it, that she had every right to be pissed. He had ignored her when she had been trying to lead him back from a line of questioning that wasn't going to end well, and then committed the cardinal sin of taking out his ear piece.

"You do fucking know," Mac said, her voice rising in pitch. "Don't play dumb, Will, it's not a becoming look on you." Will took a long drag and didn't answer. "I said wrap it up, and what did you do?"

"I know what I did," Will stubbed out the cigarette. He got up and grabbed his briefcase and coat.

"Where are you going? We're not done here," Mac demanded as Will shrugged on his coat.

"I'm done," he said bluntly, and pushed past her on his way to the elevator. Jim was standing, waiting, and his eyes widened when Will came storming into view, Mac right on his heels. Will punched the down button a few times, and Mac scoffed.

"Hitting it repeatedly is not going to make the elevator come any faster," she rolled her eyes.

"Worth a shot," Will fired back. "I'm leaving, Mac. This discussion is over."

"Oh like hell it is," Mac replied hotly. "I don't care if I have to follow you all the way home, we are _having_ this discussion."

Jim stepped back away from the elevator, holding both hands in the air in a gesture of surrender.

"I'll wait for the next one," he insisted, and Mac stomped in first, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, daring Will to follow her. He certainly wasn't going to back down, not now, so he followed behind, so mad that he was sure steam was coming out of his ears. No one, before or since, was able to get him as infuriated as MacKenzie McHale. He wasn't so delusional that he couldn't acknowledge that no one inspired him as much as MacKenzie McHale either, but that was beside the point.

"Listen, Mac," Will started as soon as the doors slid shut.

"No, _you_ listen," Mac shouted, her hands coming to her hips, and her face flushed with anger. "I've _told_ you countless times that between the hours of 8 and 9 I fucking _own_ you. So when I tell you to stop a line of questioning, or ask you to wrap it up, you just fucking do it, you got that Billy?" She pressed a finger into his chest and a lesser man would have backed down, but Will was incapable of backing down. Particularly when it came to MacKenzie.

"I'm not a fucking idiot, Mac, I know how to do my job," he shot back, and suddenly they were both just shouting at each other, Mac's finger wagging in Will's face, and Will's hands flailing as he tried to argue his side.

They were both just getting started when the elevator jerked to a stop. Immediately they both shut up as the lights blinked off and the dim emergency light came on in it's place.

"What the fuck," Will hissed, stepping to the panel and hitting the emergency button. He glanced in Mac's direction and noticed her mouth had drawn into a tight line, her arms wrapping around herself, and remembered that she was fucking _terrified_ of small spaces. She was shrinking back towards the wall, her breathing starting to pick up, and he forgot all about their stupid argument, because Mac looked like she was about thirty seconds away from freaking the fuck out, and he had never been able to handle a quiet and scared MacKenzie. He softened his voice and took a small step towards her. "Mac, it's going to be fine. I'm sure we'll start moving again in just a second." She didn't respond, her eyes unfocused and panicked, her chest beginning to heave. He swore under his breath, and stepped back away from her so that he could call the security desk.

It wasn't good news. The guard at the desk said they were working on it, but it could be a little while.

"Hang tight, Mr. McAvoy," he said, and Will scoffed. Hang tight. Yeah fucking right. Not with Mac losing her mind in the corner, her body rigid against the back wall.

"Bad news, Mac, they said it could be a little while," he reported, and immediately regretted the flippant tone that he had taken when she sucked in a sharp breath and slid down to the floor, hugging her knees to her chest. She pressed her eyes together tightly and Will could see that she was trembling.

_Fuck_. He thought, and he dropped down next to her. The need to comfort her was somehow overriding all other thoughts and he didn't hesitate to wrap an arm around her stiff body. He hadn't touched her since Valentine's Day, when he spent the better part of that evening with his arm slung around her, a goofy smile on his face. This was nothing like that. For one reason, the two of them were alone in this tiny space, without the whole newsroom watching and smirking in their direction, and for another Mac's body was tense under his arm. On Valentine's Day, she had melted into his side, just like she always had, and for a few moments he could pretend like she had never left.

"It's going to be okay, Mac," Will said in a gentle voice. "They'll have us out of here in no time. Close your eyes, don't think about where we are. Just think about wide open spaces instead." 

"Wide open spaces," Mac repeated, her voice small and quiet. He thought of her apartment, all floor to ceiling windows. Her old apartment hadn't been quite so open, and she had said again and again how much she liked how airy his apartment felt, how not closed in. He thought about how she ran away from New York, and how, as terrified as she must have been many nights, the sound of bombs dropping and the smell of sulfur heavy in the night sky, she probably still loved being under that vast, open sky. Tents were sometimes cramped, but they weren't solid, they were easy to escape, easy to get out of in a pinch. Will had suspected, and Mac had all but admitted, that she had always hated being stuck, trapped, tied down in any way, shape, or form to a place or a situation. It was why she was so easily able to run, run like hell, away from New York, but mostly away from _him_.

Will ran a soothing arm up and down her arm, and her breath caught in her throat.

"I hate elevators," she muttered, and he was relieved to see, though her eyes stayed shut, she was calming down. "I just...hate elevators."

"I think you live in the wrong city for that fear," Will tried to tease.

"You're probably right. Maybe I should leave," Mac's voice was flat, and it was Will's turn to tense.

"Let's not even joke about that," he replied immediately.

"Who was joking?" Mac's eyes opened.  "I've been offered a job at CNN."

"What?" The news stunned him. He withdrew his arm from around her shoulders as if he had been burned. He knew that she was the best in the business, but for some reason he hadn't even considered the possibility that another network would try to steal her from under him. That she might  _leave_ him. Again. "Are you thinking about...are you..." Will couldn't even get the words out.

Mac gave a small shrug.

"No? I don't think so. It's flattering, but I like what we're doing here," she answered. "Most nights, at least. When you listen to me." She rubbed her sweaty palms against her legs. Will let out a long breath, and then shifted closer to her again.

"I'm sorry," he offered quietly. He had never been very good at apologizing. He stuck stubbornly to his guns, even when he suspected he was wrong, and Mac was one of the few people to not back down from his bluster. To go toe to toe with him and demand that he concede to her point.

Mac shrugged again, and bit her lip, looking at the darkened elevator panel.

"How long did they say until we were out of here?" She asked in a small voice.

"Don't think about it," he instructed. "And don't change the subject." She sighed.

"Relax, Will, I'm not going to take it," Mac replied.

"But you thought about it?" Her silence was an answer in itself. "I thought we were...I mean, I thought we..." He wasn't sure what he thought. He thought that they were making progress, the two of them. He had stopped making snide remarks, stopped parading his dates through the newsroom, and in turn she had stopped looking so guilty and letting him heap on punishment after punishment as her due. She had stopped letting him walk all over her, and re-discovered the backbone of steel he knew she had.

"You thought we were what, Will?" Mac asked.

"I don't know," he breathed out. "I guess I don't know what I thought." It was silent for a few moments, Mac had closed her eyes again and he could hear her trying to breathe evenly. He hesitated, but then grabbed her hand. She opened her eyes and looked over at him. "I thought we were making progress. You can't leave."

"I'm not going to," she sighed. "It'd probably be better for the both of us if I did, but I can't bring myself to leave you again. It almost killed me the first time." And he knew that she meant that both figuratively and literally. He knew about the stabbing, the protest gone awry in Islamabad, but he also knew there were probably other injuries, both minor and not so minor, that he hadn't been told about.

"It wouldn't be better," he told her, his voice firm. "This show? It is what it is because of you, Mac. And I'm sorry that I don't say that enough. You make me want to do better, _be_ better."

"I could stand to hear it more often," Mac replied softly. Then she let out an indelicate snort. "God, for two people who like talking, we're total shit at communicating." Will chuckled lightly.

"I guess we should have been stuck together sooner," he said. "It helps when neither of us has anywhere to escape."

"I wouldn't want to do this job for any other anchor," Mac told him sincerely, tilting her head to look at him. "I would have never taken that job at CNN." He nodded and tipped his head back against the wall of the elevator.

"I've gotten pretty used to having you in my ear," he confessed. "You know how much I hate change." He stretched out his legs and winced when his knees cracked. "Think the staff is taking bets as to whether or not we've killed each other in here yet?" Mac laughed, and dug her phone out of her pocket.

"Jim's sent me four text messages asking if I'm all right," Mac reported, holding up her phone to show Will.

"He's a good kid," Will said.

"He is," Mac agreed. "He's the best, actually. I don't know what I would have done without him. We've been through a lot together."  Will was all too aware that she and Jim had been through hell and back together.

"Why did you leave New York?" Will asked, suddenly, and Mac whipped her head around to face him.

"You know why I left. You told me to get out!" Mac cried out incredulously. "You actually told me to 'get the fuck out.'"

"I know I did!" Will yelled back. "But why the hell did you listen? What the hell were you thinking going all the way to a fucking war zone?"

"I was thinking that if I had bigger things to worry about, like _, oh, staying alive,_ I wouldn't think about you so Goddamn often! And how I fucked everything up," she was breathing heavily again, her chest heaving, but her fingers were still twined with his. She tried to tug her hand away, but he kept a grip on her fingers. "I loved you so fucking much, and I knew I had ruined it. Ruined us. I didn't want to wait around and see the wreckage I was leaving behind, so yeah, I got the fuck out of New York."

_"Why did you sleep with him if you were so in love with me?"_ Will roared, finally dropping her hand, and Mac flinched slightly, scrambling onto her knees to face him.

"As soon as I realized I was madly in love with you I broke it off with him, I tried to tell you that but you weren't listening, " she shouted back. "And then I told you about Brian, because I thought that was what I was supposed to do! I'm a fucking idiot, Will, I've already said that. But I was, and still am, a fucking idiot who loves you."

"You love me?" Will asked, stunned stupid. Mac looked equally surprised but then nodded emphatically.

"Of course, you dunce, and I know I fucked it all up, and I know that you don't love me anymore, but I do, I'll always love you, and _that's_ why for half a second I considered the offer from CNN, because it's incredibly hard to know that I work thirty feet from the life I could have had if I hadn't been so stupid!"

"You think I don't love you?" Will repeated. "God, MacKenzie, things would be so much _easier_ if I didn't love you as much as I fucking do."

"But still?" She asked, half afraid of the answer.

"Always," he answered honestly. "And you're right, you're absolutely right. I should have listened to you. I should have let you explain." He hadn't fought nearly as hard as he should have. She was worth it. He was angry as hell when he heard that she had gotten on a plane and disappeared into chaos and danger, but he had run too, just in the opposite direction. He pushed her out and wrapped himself up in anger and bitterness and made his home there. " _I_ should have listened," he repeated. Without thinking too hard about it, he launched himself towards her, his mouth finding hers in a searing kiss. She tangled her hands in his hair, and moaned against his lips.

"Will," Mac pulled back, and the sight of her, all lips swollen and hair mussed, was one of the most beautiful things he had ever seen. "I can't...if you're not serious about this, about _us,_ we can't do this. You can't just be a quick kiss or fuck or whatever, I can't handle that."

"I'm in," Will assured. "I'm all in. As long as you are."

"I'm so fucking in," Mac hummed against his lips as she leaned forward to kiss him again. Just as their lips met, the elevator jerked to life and Will rested his forehead against Mac's.

"My place or yours?" He asked with a grin, climbing to his feet and offering a hand to tug her to hers. The doors slid open and Mac looked incredibly relieved to be in the lobby, sucking in a large gulp of air and letting out a shaky laugh.

"My keys and wallet are upstairs, and there's absolutely no way I'm getting back on an elevator, so it'll have to be yours I think," Mac replied with a matching grin. Will tangled their hands together and tugged her towards the door. "But don't think I'm not still angry at you for taking out your ear piece. We're still going to have that argument." Will sighed.

"Can we have that argument naked at least?" He asked, and Mac laughed, a full bodied laugh, the kind that always filled Will up with warmth, one that he hadn't heard in ages from her.

"Absolutely," she replied, punctuating her statement with a kiss.


End file.
